


Pole Star

by anneapocalypse



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-25
Updated: 2015-03-25
Packaged: 2018-03-19 14:12:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3612969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anneapocalypse/pseuds/anneapocalypse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>What to think</i>
  <br/>
  <i>How to dream</i>
  <br/>
  <i>If I don't sleep with you</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>You're my Pole Star</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pole Star

**Author's Note:**

> An RvB Happy Hour fic for [Marti,](http://archiveofourown.org/users/martienne) who gave me Carolina/Maine and ["Jolie Coquine" by Caravan Palace](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE7XkaFFtGE) as a prompt.

He dreams better, these days. Better not to dream at all. Too many shadows like to crawl out into the hollow of his skull, when it gets too still in there. But there are nights at least, when the dreams pass quicker, brief sandstorms of noise and voice and ache and settle into drift and quiet and let him wake shaken a little but breathing, knowing he is awake and alive. Knowing who or what he is in the silence.

She’s not beside him. No surprise. She doesn’t sleep well either.

Maine rolls out of the cramped bunk, stretches once with a long grunt and pads over the cold concrete floor. No bothering with the armor. Don’t see many people on this part of the planet. No voices, no faces but hers for weeks now. That’s good. Something to orient to. He hears her, he knows it’s real. Still a pull, when it gets bad. Still a draw to sink under somebody, give in, not think. Better it’s her.

He sucks in a breath at the sensation of weightlessness as the alien energy of the gravlift unhinges him from the ground, eerily warm as it floats him to the roof of the base and deposits him on the concrete landing pad. Strange thing, bases with no doors or windows fitted out with these bits of Covie tech, still worth a lot of credits on the military black market, enough that they could live a long time on gutting these sim bases and hocking the goods, if it came to that. Probably retire for good on two or three teleporters. They don’t need much anyway.

Feet back on solid ground, he pauses. Lets the nighttime cold of the concrete seep through the gel layer until he starts to feel it in the soles of his feet. (He’s got the temp controls off. Doesn’t need them out here, mostly.) She is near the far edge of the base, sitting, arms around her knees, red ponytail bright in the moonlight. Doubt he’d startle her, but he makes a noise in his throat anyway as he walks toward her. Just to be sure.

Her head turns slightly as he gets close.

“Hey,” she says.

When he gestures to the space beside her, makes a questioning sound, she nods, but slides backward instead, making room in front of her, so he sits there. She pulls up close behind him, knees hugging his hips. Hands rest on his sides, easy. Ah. Still intense, being close. Being touched, even through the undersuits. So long being a vehicle, body an engine for the suit of armor, driven by—no.

Don’t. Not now.

“Okay?” she says.

He thinks so.

Lets out a long sigh when her hand wraps around his jaw. God. So much to feel with that. Too much, maybe. Warm, skin on bare skin, and he could go down and down and down with that and just get lost. Wants to. But she’s tipping his head up, and he finds himself staring into an expanse of stars.

The dome of the sky makes him dizzy, a little, stretching in all directions, pinpoints and pinpoints of light and irregular, non-repeating patterns. His eyes go in and out of focus, something in his head still hitches, trying to collect it. And it whirls, empty, data with no memory location, unsaved. Can’t hold it. A swirl of void panic rises in his throat, but something else. Something pushes back against it. Takes a minute to come back to that, focus on the voice low and warm in his ear.

“Think I found it,” she says. She might’ve said it twice. He isn’t sure. “A pole star. Right near those two bright ones, red and blue—see, they kind of point to it?” She’s pointing now, reaching over his shoulder, and he follows the line of her hand. “See it? That one doesn’t move.”

Ah.

He nods, breathing out slowly into the cool night, feeling her solid heat at his back. Turns his head part way around, quirks an eyebrow at her. Lot of time spent stargazing to find that.

She snickers, and bites a kiss against his jaw. “Yeah, yeah. Beats dreaming, you know?”

He returns a quiet smile, nods and nuzzles into her. He knows.


End file.
